Free Fall
by applythepressure
Summary: "Violet. Your name is Violet." She laughed, which was all the confirmation he needed before she skipped down the bleachers before she turned around with a smirk and a two-fingered salute. "See ya around, Tate."


A/N: So the fabulous Gray Glube told me that she would like to see me do a one-shot and who am I to say no to one of the greatest authors in this fandom? I dedicate this to her. And here we go.

This is an AU where Tate and Violet are alive and attend Westfield together in present time. Tate is still a bit insane, but he doesn't see Ben for therapy. You may argue that their relationship moved fast, but it moved pretty fast in the show, so I don't think the progression is particularly OOC for either.

RECS: Anything and everything by Gray Glube, ohyellowbird, ScarlettWoman710, and LolaBleu. Thank me later when your mind is blowing with Violate awesomeness.

_**Free Fall**_

He hated Westfield.

He hated everyone with their fake tans and fake boobs and fancy Ferraris that their workaholic dads bought them to make up for never being there. More days than not, he pictured them with his bullets in their brains.

Walking the hallways felt like running a marathon that never ended. It took all his strength not to start screaming and punching lockers in his rage. He wondered how no one could see the crazed anger simmering under his skin the way the heat makes asphalt shimmer on a sweltering day. But then again, since when do they care about a loner like him when they could be throwing ragers on their yachts and popping designer drugs like Skittles?

It was the end of the day, a Friday, Thank God, the final bell had rung about ten minutes ago, and the halls were already deserted in favor of the hot, sunny weather outside. He was walking with his head down, memorizing the cracked linoleum floor, when he heard her voice crack like a whip through the silent, stagnant air.

"Fucking piece of shit!"

She kicked at the locker twice before turning around to catch him smirking at her. Her lips curled in a snarl and her eyes snapped.

"What?!"

"Nothing." He holds his hands up in surrender which does nothing to appease her glaring anger at him catching her in a vulnerable position.

"Just I could help you, if you want."

"I'm fine." Her teeth grinding against each other belied otherwise, but he didn't want to test her so he kept walking down the hall with his hands in his pockets, albeit slowly because he had a strong feeling she would change her mind.

Her audible sigh behind him made him grin.

"Wait."

He stopped and turned around slowly, appraising the diminutive girl before him, clad in a long skirt, floppy mustard cardigan, and antique bowler hat despite the oppressing heat, tapping her foot impatiently and blowing her blonde hair out of her face.

And in that moment he already knew that she was different.

"Yes?"

"Can you help me?" The way she said it made him think that she hated asking anyone for help.

He walked back to her, trying to keep his smile at a minimum because he knew she wouldn't take kindly to him relishing her misfortune.

"Sure, what's the problem?"

"This piece of shit –" she punctuated her statement with an extra kick to her locker – "won't open no matter how many times I try my combination."

"Alright, what's your combo?"

She hesitated slightly and he already knew what was holding her up and he couldn't blame her.

"Don't worry, I won't snoop through your stuff."

She huffed and then gave in.

"16, 22, 9."

"Thanks."

After a few tries, he found that she had to jiggle the handle just so before it would open. She practiced until she got the hang of it and she threw it open with relief, gracing him with a small smile of thanks.

"Thanks. I would be royally screwed if you didn't show up."

"No problem."

He watched her toss the books she needed in her backpack and she stood up, swinging it over her shoulder. When she noticed he was still there, she cocked her head and shot him a look that he found surprisingly hard to decipher.

"What's your name?"

"Tate."

"Hi."

"Hi."

He didn't know what to make of this odd exchange of greetings – why would they say hello to each other when they were already talking? – until she burst out laughing.

"You're not going to ask my name or if I'm new or if you could bum a cigarette?"

His shocked look made her laugh again, the sound reverberating in the empty hallway. He thought her laugh was the most exquisite sound he had ever heard.

"Of course you smoke. I could smell your breath."

By the time he was calling out to ask her name, she was already out the door.

* * *

Over the weekend he couldn't stop thinking about her, his mystery girl. He didn't even know her name and he already wanted to know everything about her – her favorite color, her hobbies, what her lips tasted like.

She was already becoming the light in his lonely, dark life, a beacon guiding him away from the guns stashed under his bed that his fingers increasingly itched for with each passing day.

He hoped she was thinking about him, too.

* * *

He couldn't give a fuck about his last period class – the teacher was an absolute bitch and he had no interest in political science – so he sneaked outside through the locker room and walked over to the bleachers to get lost in his book of Keats and music of Nirvana.

He smiled when he saw her blonde hair swaying in the breeze.

He climbed up the stairs and sat next to her, but she didn't look at him, instead taking a hearty suck around the filter of her cigarette only to exhale sharply, sending the acrid smoke around her soft face in angry swirls.

"So you found my hiding spot."

"It's not a very good one. Anyone could see us up here."

"I don't think they'd care and I know I don't."

They lapsed back into silence for a while until he saw her lips quirking up into the hint of a smile.

"So I never did get your name."

She let out a perfect smoke ring before responding.

"You're right, you didn't."

She put out her cigarette on his shoe, gleefully crunching it into the rubber of his Converse, before getting up to leave, but Tate is quicker this time and catches her arm, clothed in the light fabric of a deep purple hoodie.

"Don't leave."

She looked back at him.

"Why should I stay?"

"Because I want you to. Please."

Because you're different and I'm different and we can be different together.

She sits back down like his request is an annoying inconvenience, but her slight smile suggests otherwise, that she's secretly happy to stay and that thought makes him thrilled.

"So what's your name?"

"Guess."

"Come on, that's not fair, there's millions of girls' names."

"Fine, I'll give you a hint so you stop whining. It is the name of a flower."

He grinned – that he could work with.

"Rose?"

She scoffed. "Where's Leonardo DiCaprio, then?"

"Daisy?"

"I'd rather die."

He smirked at her deadpan and decided to have some fun with her.

"Myrtle?"

"What am I, sixty?"

"Petunia?"

"You're not even trying."

He let out a small chuckle before meeting her eyes.

"Okay, I'm back to being serious."

She rolled her eyes.

"Lavender?"

"Close."

He didn't expect that answer. What's close to Lavender? He met her challenging gaze head on and suddenly it came to him and he could feel his face light up with realization.

"Violet. Your name is Violet."

She laughed, which was all the confirmation he needed before she skipped down the bleachers before she turned around with a smirk and a two-fingered salute.

"See ya around, Tate."

* * *

Violet.

It was perfect for her.

She was perfect.

* * *

He woke up to his bitch of a mother screaming at him that he'll be late if he doesn't get up this second and he contemplates getting his favorite revolver from underneath the floorboards and blowing her brains so high they would drip from the gaudy chandelier in the living room.

"Shut up, you dumb bitch, I'm up."

He rolls out of bed and as he is trying to find a clean piece of underwear in the hurricane that is his room, he glances out his window and does a double take.

Violet was in the window across from his laughing at him.

And of course he looks like shit because his hair is all messed up and he is in old boxers and he knows he must look like a fool running around frantically searching for clothes.

He is still speechless, mouth hanging open like a gaping fish, when he sees her put her hand to her mouth in an effort to stifle the giggles before she turns away and goes out the door of what he can only imagine to be her bedroom.

"TATE LANGDON, IF YOU DON'T GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT – "

He snaps out of the surprise of finding out the girl he can't stop thinking about is his neighbor at the crack of dawn on a Tuesday and grumbles, throwing on a random shirt and jeans from his dresser and dashing down the stairs past his mother without so much as a hello to his car outside.

As he starts it up, he runs his hand through his hair as his breath comes barely visible in the cool morning air.

His head repeats her name like a mantra the entire way to school.

* * *

He could tell that she knew he was coming by the way she refused to meet his eyes and yet had a playful smirk plastered on her face. He plopped down on the bleachers next to her.

"Got a light?"

Wordlessly, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a Zippo and soon both of them are greedily sucking nicotine into their lungs.

"So you saw me this morning."

She was trying so hard not to laugh that it almost made him crack up himself.

"I saw a lot of you, actually."

He blushes because he doesn't sleep with a shirt on. She grins, showing all her teeth, and he knows that she likes making him uncomfortable.

"I liked it."

He turns to her in shock. He didn't think he was bad looking, but it wasn't as if lots of girls openly sang their praises of his torso.

"You did?"

She turns to face him head on and her stare is so strong that it is hard for him to withstand it.

"Why wouldn't I?"

He shrugs, a bit bashful at her blunt question, and picks at a hangnail.

"I'm not the type of guy that most girls swoon over."

"I'm not most girls."

He meets her eyes and a jolt of so many things – understanding, excitement, challenge, attraction, along with so myriad emotions he cannot describe – passes between them.

"No, you're not."

"But you already knew that."

"Yeah, I did."

She puts out her cigarette on the bleacher bench this time and sighs.

"You're different, Tate. You're not like the others, all caught up with superficial shit that doesn't matter. I like that."

His heart swells because he cannot believe his good fortune that someone like Violet could possibly be interested in someone like him. He hesitates before asking his question because he does not approach girls like this ever and he doesn't think he could bear dealing with a pitying rejection from her.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

She looked at him and he caught his breath because he never realized that someone's eyes could be so mesmerizing.

"Let's go."

He really wants to hold her hand as they descend down the steps, but he stops himself.

* * *

He takes her to his favorite stretch of the beach. Hardly anyone comes here because it is partitioned off by jagged rocks and no one wants to risk climbing over them especially at high tide like it is now. He thankfully had a blanket in his car and he grabbed it before following her into the sand and spreading it out not too far from the tide line. He smiled as he watched her take her shoes off and jump in the surf. She throws her head over her shoulder and the wind is blowing enough so that half her face is obscured by a curtain of her hair, but he can make out her mischievous expression.

"Come on, the water's great!"

He drops his beloved Converse in the sand and trots up to where she is, only to get a hearty splash in the chest and face as she dances away from him.

"Oh, you did not just do that!"

"Sorry I'm not sorry!"

He play-chases her around the beach, trying not to stare at her long, creamy legs as she gathers her long skirt up to her thighs so she can evade him more easily. Her dainty laughter and taunts echo off the rocks.

"You can't catch me! Slowpoke!"

He thanks whatever deity exists that he used to be the best sprinter in his class and with a sudden burst of speed, he catches up to her and tackles her into the sand. Both of them are breathing hard and he is trying everything he can think of to stop the growing hardness and warmth in his groin.

"You fooled me. You are really fast."

"I was the State Champ in the 100 meter dash last year."

She raises an eyebrow at him, but he hopes that she could tell from his tone of voice that he is not gloating or bragging, just merely stating a fact.

"Well, you got me, Mr. State Champ. Now what are you going to do with me?"

So many dirty thoughts flooded into his mind that his usual boner killer image of his bitch of a mother sucking off their ugly gardener couldn't stem the flow of blood to down below.

Suddenly she tilted her hips up slightly and he couldn't help but let out a slight, needy groan at the contact of her hot center to his own. She smirked and he knew she busted him red-handed.

"Apparently lots of dirty things. Gonna punish me for getting you all wet?"

He really needed her to stop saying thinly veiled innuendos that sounded even more erotic with her throaty voice. He needed to turn the tables, go on the offensive, because even if he was the one pinning her down, she held all the power now.

He leaned down by her ear and couldn't help but feel smugly satisfied when he felt her tremor underneath his touch.

"This time I'm not the one who will be getting wet."

With the double entendre ringing in both their ears, he suddenly leaped off her, gathered her squealing in his arms, and ran crashing into the surf, dunking her underneath the water and laughing when she came back up sputtering and cursing. She pretended to be spitting mad, but he knew that the sexual implications of what he said, of the compromising position he was very happy to be in, were still rattling in her brain.

They ran back to the blanket, Tate wrapping around her so she wouldn't get cold and even daring to wrap an arm around her in the pretext of keeping her warm. She shot him a look, but she settled into his side and didn't tell him to stop when he started rubbing her back.

"So who are you?"

He looked at her, startled by the question.

"I'm Tate. I live next door to you. And I hate Westfield as much as you do."

And I think I already fell for you.

She rolled her eyes. "Obviously, but I really don't know _you_. What music do you like? What's your family like? What are your pet peeves? What makes you Tate?"

"I could ask the same of you. What makes you Violet?"

They spend the next few hours tentatively learning about each other and he feels special that she willingly opened herself to him. They discovered a mutual love for Cobain and Morrissey as well as a mutual disdain for their fucked up families.

"Yeah, my mom caught my dad cheating on her with one of his psychology graduate students after she had had a miscarriage a few months earlier. She slashed him with a kitchen knife. The student – I think her name was Hayden or something – wouldn't leave us alone. She would call all the time, make threats, and stalk both my mom and dad. So they decided to move here for a fresh start, which is fucking bullshit because my mom still hates my dad for cheating. They yell at each other all the time, and then I come in the room, they act like they're so in love and everything's fine like I can't see the dirty looks and hear the fighting."

"That must really suck."

"Yeah. I wonder if they even realize I'm still around. Some days I want to run away just to see if they notice I'm missing."

"I would notice."

She smiles at him, a sad, soft smile and as strong as he knows she is, even she feels overwhelmed sometimes.

"I'm glad for that."

They watch the ocean waves crash into the beach and the seagulls circling overhead for a meal for a little while until Tate speaks.

"My dad bailed on us when I was very young. My mother was distraught, drove herself to drink so much that I don't really remember a time when she was sober. She was always a mean old cocksucker and when my dad left, all that hatred and bitterness became turned on me and my siblings."

"That must have been tough."

"It was. My sister Addie had Down's and my mom would call her stupid and berate her for trying to be a 'pretty girl.' I'm pretty sure she had her dumbass boyfriend at the time kill my brother."

"What?" Her voice was heavy with sympathy and disbelief. "How could a mother do that?"

"She wasn't much of a mother as you can tell. He had lots of mental and physical disabilities, and since my mother only cares about reputation and appearances, having an 'abnormal' son humiliated her. So she got Larry to kill him."

"That's horrible."

"And she puts a lot of pressure on me to be the 'perfect' son. She always wants me to be someone I'm not. It kills her when I refuse to be the straight-A student-athlete prodigy she wants me so desperately to be."

He feels her hand come up to entwine with the one draped around her back and he shivered at the current of electricity that shot through at him at the contact.

"I like you just the way you are."

"Thanks."

They shared another smile before Tate noticed that the sun was dipping lower and lower over the horizon. He groaned because the thought of leaving the beach with Violet – probably the closest place to paradise in his book – to go home to his bitch of a mother made his stomach churn.

"It's late. We should get going."

"Do we have to?"

He would stay there with her all night, all week, for eternity if she wanted.

"Yeah."

"Alright."

She hops up and brushes the sand off her clothes vigorously before taking his hand in hers – like it was not a big deal at all and he was almost giddy with the feel of her whole hand firmly enclosed by his – and pulling him to his car.

* * *

"I'll just drive you home and I'll drive you in the morning tomorrow, so don't worry about your car."

"Thanks."

He could tell she was tired and cold. Her damp clothes were sticking to her skin a little too tightly for his comfort and he forced his eyes to stay firmly glued to the road. He turned on the radio and welcomed the strains of Nirvana filling the car; at a stoplight, he glanced over to see her mouthing the lyrics.

He pulled into his driveway and cut the engine. Her hand covered his on the shift and he looked into her eyes for a second before the desire to kiss her became almost unbearable. She leaned forward, cautiously, timidly, in a so unlike Violet way that he realized that she was as afraid of his rejection as he was of hers.

"What is this, Tate?"

He really didn't know. He guessed that they were at least friends – especially after their heart-to-heart at the beach – but the sexual tension between them was incendiary even though they had just met not too long ago. They were just two fucked up, lost, lonely teenagers who somehow found each other in the least likely of ways.

"I'm not sure."

She bit her lip, gathered her courage before taking the plunge, and leaned in closer to him.

"What do you want it to be?"

I want everything. I want myself to be your everything just like you are my everything.

She leaned in even closer, practically touching his lips, inviting him to kiss her senseless just as he wanted from the moment he first laid eyes on her, but he froze, he couldn't do anything, and like a bad movie, he saw her pull away from him, quickly hiding her embarrassment and disappointment behind a mask of indifference.

"Let me know when you've figured it out."

She was walking across the yard, taking care to trample his mother's carefully pruned bushes, before his mind started working again.

* * *

He was leaning against the car when she came towards him the next morning. He tried not to blush as he remembered jerking off the night before to the memory of her skirt bunched up around her thighs and her hips grinding into his when he pinned her down. She had freshly showered, the smell of her shampoo teasing him as she opened the passenger side door and plopped into the seat.

She didn't say anything the whole ride to Westfield and he was panicking that he permanently blew it with her last night when he didn't answer her question. They pulled into the parking lot right before the first bell, so the lot was already deserted. She avoided eye contact as she reached down to grab her bag, but he grabbed her arm before she could bolt out of the door and away to someplace where he couldn't talk to her.

"Violet, wait."

"We're late."

Her continued indifference gave him the fuel to get angry and he yanked her back into the car and slammed the locks down.

"Since when did you give a shit about being late for school?"

"Since I practically threw myself at you and made an ass of myself when you rejected me! Now let me out!"

"Violet, listen –"

"What? You're going to tell me how you have a girlfriend? That this was a bet? Or how pathetically easy it was to get me to fall for you in five days? Spare me, Tate. I feel humiliated and all I want to do is forget about last night." He could see the unshed tears shimmering in the corners of her eyes and everything he had been thinking for the past few days just spilled forward.

"Violet, stop. I'm – I'm fucking sorry, alright? I froze up, I didn't know what to do because I like you so much it scares me and I don't care that we just met, I feel like I've been waiting for you forever. And I couldn't do anything because I fantasized about kissing you so many times already and I was afraid that if I moved, spoke, breathed, I would have woken up and it would have just been a dream and I couldn't have handled that. But it was real and I was shocked that you, the girl of my dreams, would want anything to do with me, let alone like me back, and it felt too good to be true to really be real. But it was, and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

He looked up to see her mouth hanging open slightly, like she was completely stunned by his sudden confession. But her lips slowly curled into a smile and her eyes flashed with happiness.

"So you like me."

"God, yes, so much."

"Good, because I like you, too."

She shrugged off her cardigan and in a bout of bravery that he had now come to expect from her, crawled onto his lap. He offhandedly thought that his cock might burst from all the teasing and self-tugging from the past twenty-four hours. She leaned down again, her face taking up his vision completely, and he felt lightheaded from her proximity.

"Kiss me."

He groaned before thrusting upwards and smashing his lips against hers and all thoughts of being late were utterly forgotten in favor of this beautiful, perfect, petite girl in his arms.

* * *

He took her out to a little bistro by the beach for dinner and they laughed over their meals, playing a rather competitive game of footsies underneath the table. After taking her home, he dropped her at her door and gave her a kiss that made her weak in the knees. He sauntered back to his house only to be assaulted by a flower vase as he walked in the door.

"WHAT ARE YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

He wasn't surprised to see the half-finished bottle of vodka on the counter.

He ducked as a glass bowl whizzed by his head.

"I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE WHORING AROUND WITH THAT GIRL!"

He could feel the rage bubbling up, but he clamped it down as best he could.

"She is not a whore. She is amazing, and there is NOTHING you can do to keep me from seeing her."

"Don't try me, Tate Langdon. I am your MOTHER. YOU WILL FOLLOW MY RULES."

He dashed forward suddenly, grabbing a fistful of her platinum blonde, perfectly coiffed hair and yanking her so close to his face that he thought he could get drunk off the alcoholic fumes.

"You are not my mother. You are just a selfish bitch who only cares about herself. I don't give a shit about your rules. So I suggest you mind your own fucking business."

He threw her backwards with enough force so that she got the message that he wasn't fucking around. She stumbled over an upturned chair and he could still hear her groans of pain as he walked up the stairs.

* * *

They were back on the bleachers, sharing a smoke and looking at the clouds.

"What's wrong, Tate?"

He opened his mouth to deny it, but she cut him off.

"Don't even try to lie to me. I can see it in your face."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"My mother found out about us and she was less than pleased. Thankfully her aim sucks when she's shitfaced."

"What? She was THROWING things at you?"

"Yeah, a vase, a bowl, too, I think."

"Tate, you should report her. That's abuse."

"No, because she has a way of getting the cops to believe what she wants them to, and I would only be in a whole new world of torture after that. It's not worth it, Vi. In a few months, we are out of here and that is all I care about."

"But I care about you. You shouldn't have to deal with that bullshit."

"I have you. You're all I need."

They spend the rest of the afternoon wrapped up in how the other tastes.

* * *

She sneaks him up to her room after her parents went out for some type of movie date bullshit. As soon as their car turned off their road, he was through the back door and up the stairs.

"So this is what your room looks like."

"Yeah, nothing special. My mom wanted to make it all girly with frilly lace and hearts decals and shit and I about barfed. What am I, eight?"

He laughed at her scrunched up face of disgust. She walked over to her iPod and soon the air was full of music, the seductive bass permeating the room. She comes back over to sit on her bed next to him and he feels hyper-aware of the fact that her hand is on his knee.

"Did your mom give you anymore shit today?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

She leans her head into the crook of his shoulder and her hair cascades down his shoulder blade.

"I hate that you have to deal with that. I wish I could protect you or something. I feel so helpless."

"Hey, hey." He leans down and lifts up her face so he can kiss her nose and then her mouth gently. "Don't worry about me. As long as you're here, I can endure anything."

"It's just not fair." He wipes away a tear, unbelievably touched that she, this perfect girl, is crying over him.

"I'll be okay. I have you."

She reaches up to caress his face. "I –," but she stops, biting her lip and avoiding his gaze.

"What is it, Violet?"

"I think – I think I'm in love with you."

He couldn't help but leap for joy on the inside, but his silence made her get the wrong impression and she started backpedaling frantically, a brilliant pink blush blooming on her cheeks.

"And I know that sounds silly because it's only been a couple days, but I've never felt so strongly about a person before. I didn't want to say it earlier because I was afraid you'd freak out and I couldn't bear that thought, but then I also couldn't keep this a secret anymore and I just want –"

He put a finger to her lips and her eyes were wide.

"I fell in love with you since the moment I saw you kicking that locker."

Her face broke into a smile and she was so breathtakingly beautiful that he pulled her down on top of him, pouring all his feelings into the way he kissed her, not caring if he suffocated because receiving her affection was more important than air. He felt as though he were drowning in her love and he never wanted to be anywhere without her with him.

And after he made her scream with pleasure and her thighs quiver with want, he lay sated next to her, listening to the rhythm of her breathing. He laced his hand with hers, and she turned to look him in the eyes, her own swirling with so many emotions and he couldn't help but joyfully smile because she loved him back.

She loved him back.

And for him, that is all that matters.

* * *

A/N: Reviews make me happy!


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